The Nausicaanade is not just a mixed meta genre, it also is one of the most popular recent meta genres in the history of modern fiction, period.
The Modern Nausicaanade goes far back to the publication of Albert Robida’s Saturnin Farandoul in 1879.
The meta genre maker is Wama Son of the Moon, created by the late Mexican comics giant Joaquín Cervantes Bassoco. The comic is so little known to modern non-Hispanophone viewers but indirectly influential outside of Latin America, it’s safe to say that the ridiculous current Mexican copyright laws do not help matters at all. Also, it is basically Nausicaa starring a Tarzan Boy, who is a serial lemon Stu living with certain strange fantasy animals.
The meta genre codifiers are Wama Son of the Moon’s far more popular and directly influential spinoff, Tawa the Gazelle Man, the Japanese Toku Monster Prince and ultimately its fellow Sagisu family creation Spectreman, plus Star Fleet. The former is Nausicaa starring a Tarzan boy, who isn’t much of a serial lemon Stu in spite of living with certain strange fantasy animals. The second and third are basically Nausicaa starring a Tarzan boy living with remnant cryptid pseudo dinosaurs and Nausicaa starring a dullard spiritual predecessor to both of Tatsuya Yasuda’s Steel Jeegs. The latter is a chronological cross of Nausicaa and Grendizer, starring an outer space team battling a corrupt empire and its wicked military.
The manga that helped popularise the modern Nausicaanade to Japanese audiences and ultimately other consumers from the rest of the world is the genre namer itself, Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Its compressed film adaptation, which actually was conceived first, is even more influential, inspiring the ATLA franchise and James Cameron’s Avatar amongst many others in recent years. Its sole major imitators are Elfie of the Blue Sea and Green Legend Ran, themselves cult classics featuring humanlike mermaids and monsters representing a bunch of debilitating natural disasters, as well as Fern Gully, which itself stars tropical Australian animals, and Nadia: Secret of the Water, a Jules Verne inspired anime show which itself inspired Disney’s Atlantis: The Lost Empire, which is Nausicaa with amortal sea dwellers, and another Jules Verne inspired anime show called The Secret Of Cerulean Sand, which is Nausicaa with bright minerals.
The legendary Farscape by Jim Henson Productions is a cross of Nausicaa and Space Battleship Yamato, starring an outer space team battling wicked empires and corrupt militaries.
Its own relatives, James Cameron’s Avatar franchise, is Nausicaa featuring a human interacting with catlike, tall and blue but rather annoyingly Stuish aliens.
Their spiritual successor is Ainbo: Spirit of the Amazon, which is more than just a variant of Nausicaa featuring mildly stereotypical Native Amazonians battling tooth and nail against a mining company. Not only is its links with Nausicaa very apparent, if rather indirect, the first word of its title, which means ‘girl’ in a Panoan language called Shipibo Conibo, rhymes with The English word for the goddamn frigging Rainbow.
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